Joshua Fields Millburn & Ryan Nicodemus help over 20 million people live meaningful lives with less through their website, books, podcast, and documentary. The Minimalists have been featured in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, Forbes, TIME, ABC, CBS, NBC, BBC, CBC, and NPR.

No Value in an Empty Room

One misconception about minimalism is that it requires barren rooms, stark white walls, a vast emptiness.

But it doesn’t.

While a clean aesthetic certainly lends itself to the minimalist lifestyle, one doesn’t benefit from having nothing at all. Only a sanitarium functions optimally when totally vacant. Everywhere else, however, requires a certain amount of stuff. How much stuff is up to us—an individual choice.

Yes, there is a certain elegance of minimalism. But that’s because erasing that which is superfluous allows us to see the beauty in the essential. Cleaning the slate can be nice—temporarily freeing—but only because we can fill the slate with whatever adds value to our lives.

Real value, though, comes only from inside us—not the room, not the stuff. Of course this is much easier to notice if there’s less junk cluttering our lives.